


Conflagration

by carriedon_awolfsback



Category: Ghost (Sweden Band)
Genre: Au of sorts, Bad Parenting, Group Sex, Multi, Origin Story, childhood bullying, demonfucking, offscreen parental death, religious angst, warning for bigotry using religion as an excuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-06-16 20:32:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15445269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carriedon_awolfsback/pseuds/carriedon_awolfsback
Summary: Alessandro Copia just wants to be a good son, a good student and a good Catholic. He stays close with his mother despite her grief and anger, he reads voraciously in many languages, he sings in the church choir at Mass, he keeps his discoloured eye turned away from the lattice during confession, and he dreams of demons.





	1. The Purgative Way

Little Alessandro Copia was the only child born to an unlucky husband and wife that were reduced to one deeply unlucky widow when he was just a baby. Neither of them ever got to know how loving and strong mother and son could have been together, because her pain was still too raw to bear when he grew enough to stumble into things and whine and leave behind trails of domestic destruction, and then to cry at petty discomforts and beg to play carefree while her heart remained drained dry and chapped. She tried, God knew she tried, but as much love as she managed to muster for her son, her resentment was always far greater. She sat and prayed for that to change silently all the way through the whole Mass, with him sat in poor posture beside her (always stage-whispering “why? Why?” to her at the priest’s every assertion until she forcibly pushed his upturned beseeching face away from hers). But it never did change.

She couldn’t decide if it had been worse being trapped all day with a whining infant in the small, dilapidated house that no longer felt like her home, or as it was now, her alone all day just waiting for him to stumble home with a fresh tale of woe. Beaten by the schoolmaster for talking in class, and then by the other little boys after class for daring to think he could talk to them.

It was always that God-awful eye. He would always crawl in with a tear-streaked face and a dark bruise blossoming around that milk-clouded left eye that always looked so wide and manic and fearful no matter what the rest of his expression said.

Children are so cruel.

“They said- they said- th- h-” his hysterical hiccups and eye-rubbing and shuddering repeatedly dislodged the cold-soaked towel she was trying so damned hard to soothe his pain with, and she battled to contain a full-throated snarl of frustration at him.

“Don’t listen to what they say, Ale,” she said briskly. “What silly little children say doesn’t matter from one day to the next, you’ll realize that when you’re old enough to have your own.”

“They said it was a Devil’s mark.”

She thought she’d gotten used to it, but really, she’d just learned to focus on the other eye. She would never, ever, not under pain of death have admitted so, not even in the darkest privacy of her own mind- but the truth was, some days, being forced to actually look into it again and again as she pressed a cold compress to his split brow brought the slightest turn of revulsion to her stomach.

“Ridiculous. It’ll all be forgotten again tomorrow.”

***

The creak of the bedroom door was enough to spring Alessandro’s mother awake in the small hours, bolt upright, her hands clawed in the sheets, ready to ball into fists.

“Mama,” came a little voice in the dark. “I can’t sleep.”

"Can’t sleep?” She hissed furiously, her eyes adjusting, picking out the diminutive silhouette of her son in the doorway, all hunched shoulders and messy hair. “Well, neither can I, now! What do you expect me to do about that? What can you possibly be doing that keeps you awake all night?”

“I had nightmares again.”

“What nightmares?”

“Monsters.”

“Monsters?” She slapped both hands on the mattress in frustration, the thud making him flinch visibly. “For God’s sake, child, how old are you now?”

He was all of seven years. “Mama, please, I want to stay in your room.”

“Absolutely not. I need to get up early for work, without you keeping me awake all night and being under my feet whining away when I’m getting ready.”

“Please, Mama, I don’t want to go back to bed,” his voice was getting that wound-up, wobbly cadence again, and she hated- no, she stopped herself there. “If I sleep in my own bedroom I always have nightmares about monsters and devils-”

“Devils!” Her voice was a whipcrack. “You don’t know the meaning of the word. Everything with you is horrible tall stories, fear, devils. What have you got in this world to be so afraid of? Nothing but your own bad behaviour, Ale, and if you don’t get back to bed this second I’ll-” She was swinging her legs off the bed,, but he was already backing away, hands raised, partly in placation, partly in self-defence, and a little bit to hide his wet eyes.

He would go back to the demons. They were less fearful to see rear up in the corner of the room.

***

They were devils. He knew it in his bones. He saw it in their cloudy glimmering eyes, their skins discoloured like old charred meat, their curved horns and spade-tipped tails pulled straight from an old and fearful painting of hellfire.

But then, why could they be so… kind?

Alessandro didn’t remember the first time he dreamed of them; they had always seemed to be there. No matter how pure, high and hopeful he kept his thoughts and actions all day, how quickly he dashed into bed, steadfastly avoiding looking at the shadowy corners of the room or the bare clawlike branches picked out by moonlight outside the window, how firmly he pulled the cover over his head and squeezed shut his odd eyes, whether he prayed for the whole world and everything in it in the dark or not- he would find himself in that long stone corridor. Pupil-less eyes surrounded him in the darkness, their curious claws tapping, their blunt overbitten maws looming open towards him- and that was where he used to wake up, in early years, with a wail that nobody replied to and warm, teary cheeks.

Over time, though, as though his eyes were adjusting to low light, the nightly terror had become less so. For longer and longer he could stand the cold dark and the curious sniffing of the many beasts. One night, he held his hand out to one as you would to a cat, and it inspected his palm with its own hand, taking care not to scrape him with its claws. Its skin was as soft and faintly warm as a human’s, even if it looked rough and singed.

From then on, he let them come to him with ease, and it was with shock but genuine joy that he found one day, if he stayed asleep long enough, some of them would hold him, chirp to him and say kind things that echoed in his mind without passing through his ears, as though he was their own young.

He woke up overwhelmed and sobbing again the first morning after that, but they were blissful tears he’d never known before, tears that felt it good and clean to cry. The best, most loved, most safe nights of his tiny little life, in the laps of dark beasts with arching horns and Hell-burnt skin. From then on he would wake with less of a shudder, but a lot more guilt and confusion.

***

Not everything in the young master Copia’s early years was tinged with pain, however. There were two things that he found happiness in, and by keeping them relatively private and in line with what his teachers wanted, he managed to avoid having them tainted by too much negative association.

The first was language. He was a fast learner, reading and writing before any of his classmates. Latin came very easily to him and so did French, with English and German not too far behind, although the stiffness of the Germanic languages gave his voice a more nasal, drawling affect that made him sound slightly insolent. Once he had exhausted the school library, which he did quickly, he graduated to the town library, which he found to be a font of security as well as entertainment- other kids never followed him in there, no matter how starved they were for a fight. In its four walls, occasionally attended by the bemused but kindly elderly librarian, he nested in whatever he could lay his hands on- histories of old empires, fairytales of wayward children, literary novels he barely understood, even the old census documents of the little town that were stored haphazardly upstairs. Mysteries were his favourites- in the absence of a television, which his mother stayed resistant to well into the 70s, they opened up to him a world of things that were never discussed by the teacher-Sisters in the little school that backed onto the church; things like embezzlement, poison, and  yacht parties, and passionate kissing. Although its stock was limited to the budget, taste and morality of the town seniors and even the most scandalous whodunits he could find ultimately faded to black before too much instruction could be imparted, in years a long time yet to come the matured, calculated Copia who seemed so removed from the wide-eyed Alessandro would still look back on the hours he spent at the library after school and before his mother got home from work as infinitely more formative than his actual schooling.

The second was music. Even his mother noted that Alessandro had a passably sweet voice as a boy, trilling beside her in the congregation on Sundays. Even when it had started to break, it was still more confident and smooth than his speaking voice, which always seemed to be directed less to the heavens and more with a faint stutter towards his conversation partner’s knees. It was only natural that he was soon co-opted into the church choir, even if he was encouraged to stand towards the back with the older boys- ostensibly because of his range and acoustics, but it also had the side effect of concealing his wide, unsettling white eye in the shadows. He didn’t mind being obscured- if anything, it made it easier for him to recite without self-consciousness. In the incense smoke and half-light in the back row of the choir, he found the same kind of heady, meandering peace as he found at the library when slipping further away from real life and into a story.

It wasn’t just the music of praise and penitence that lifted him up. Much as his mother resisted the modern march of television (and found it easy to do so, living on the edge of town, with the church to one side and the fields to the other), the same resentment didn’t extend to the wireless radio she was familiar and secure with- and in time he learned to tune it away from her dour news and talk channels of choice, and instead to stations that played pop music. One day to rescue her finely-tuned arrangement from his tampering young paws, she provided him with a tinny little radio of his own that he could carry in the flat of his hand (“do not break that, I won’t get you another one,” she warned as he scampered away with it gleefully), and from then on his summer afternoons and winter nights were accompanied by a constant stream of hip, jangling guitars and bittersweet voices with stories to tell that he only half-caught the meaning of.

In the warm spring the grasses and wheats and wildflowers in the fallow fields behind the house grew long enough to conceal him for the most parts, and these were the best times. Then he could ramp the little volume dial up as far as it would go and sway-step between floral fronds, slow and careful at first, then with flourish and power as he let the interweaving rhythms of instruments and voices override his tense shoulders and instruct his normally reserved youthful energy. Nobody dances with more freedom or creativity than a happy child, and in the lengthening evening shadows with the long grasses still warm from the sun and humming with the passages of bees and fruitflies, that was what he could be for a while.

***

If only he could stay that way a little longer.

“I still dream about demons. Every night.”

“It’s natural to be afraid of monsters, child. I think we’ve talked about this before.” Alessandro caught the shine of a dark, heavy-lidded eye between the tiny gaps in the grille and whipped his head around, staring resolutely down, lest the wide pallid O of his own betray his identity even more clearly than his reedy young voice already had. “Even if such a literal fear is a little… less common by your age these days. Dreams can be a way for both good and evil forces to speak to us, it’s true, but for the most part, they simply reflect the things in life we are learning to value or disdain, especially when we are young, and our minds are new and busy. There’s certainly no sin in fearing and disdaining the Evil One and his kin enough to dream of their danger, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“But I’m not afraid of them. That’s, the thing is, I dream that they’re… kind to me.” He swallowed hard. “They… listen to my worries about my waking life… like friends.”

There was a contemplative silence from the other side of the partition. He worried at his lower lip with his front teeth. It was still healing on one side from catching a heavy right hook from an older boy  the week before, but he couldn’t help it.

“They hold me. Comfort me. Nobody real ever wants to… comfort me,” he continued, compulsively filling the silence, compulsively exposing his misery, his peers’ cruelty, his mother’s failings. He didn’t want to, but what else could one do in a confessional booth? Walk away? Lie? “They look like demons but they don’t seem like them and I don’t know if it’s wrong to feel comforted by them. Sometimes… sometimes I think, if they were real people, I would… feel things towards them-” A horrific lurch of realization that that was too much, even for this place, especially for this place, hit him in the stomach, heart and head. “Only the- there are boy ones and girl ones, but it’s only the girls, of course-!”

Twelve is a hell of an age to be. The cusp of so many things.

“Sometimes I dream that they’re fierce but not to me,” he said hurriedly, trying to push that particular element from his mind. “Sometimes I dream that they… hurt people who have hurt me, and they come to visit me with… blood on their hands.”

Even that wasn’t actually helping him not think of what had happened to him- no, own up to your own failures, what he had done- for the first time a few mornings prior; waking, missing as usual the clawed palm that had cupped his cheek in a goodbye cuddle and the warm firm chests he’d been pressed again, but this time in some new, richer, heavier way, in his belly, that he instinctively knew how to tend to. He felt like his skin might actually blister from the heat of the shame crawling on his chest and cheeks. His teeth were tainted with a red smear from his re-opening lip, sour and iron. If he just bled all his blood out from the mouth right here on the floor, he thought, feeling slightly dizzy, it would be nothing but a relief for everyone involved.

“You are reaching a point in life…” the voice on the other side began, awkwardly and evenly, and Alessandro just about got his death wish from sheer silent humiliation, knowing loosely what was coming, having heard this halting, sickly tone unprompted from his mother, having heard the vaguest hint of it in teachers’ voices. “…When the mind and body both are… tumultuous in their character. It’s a vulnerable time. Worldly things will try to convince you that things which you know are wrong can be made acceptable with enough secrecy, and they will rarely do so with threats, but rather with gratification. If all we had to be concerned about was resisting obvious violence, life would be simple and everyone would be floating around in a constant state of grace, wouldn’t they? Nobody hesitates to crush a stinging insect, but who would think to pluck wings off a butterfly? That is why they use not pain, but comfort against you, to lull your resistance to their influence.”

At least the old priest’s droning voice tone was boring him back to calmness. He was just thinking he might be getting out of this one for free, when a delicately weighted question came to him from the other side of the booth. “Have you… acted on anything those dreams make you feel, son?”

It would be the first time he lied in that place.

He had barely ever even thought of doing so before; a few days ago it would have seemed not merely undesirable for all involved but impossible- and then suddenly, today, there it came, as easy as striding one foot in front of the other. A wisp of something coiled in his chest. Something smoky, prideful, self-defensive that, like almost everything, felt good and bad at the same time.

“No,” he said immediately and confidently.

Maybe that was where it really started.

***

Alessandro turned 20 in the spring of 1986.On his birthday his mother strung tacky plastic bunting all around the house inside and out, and invited half the town to dinner in the field behind their small garden, where she presented him with a tailored grey suit befitting a young man, with a black cashmere scarf for the cold months. It must have cost her months of saving up, and he worried that in his effort to contain his wet eyes in front of his mother’s friends, he seemed less happy and grateful than it warranted.

He had grown into a coltish-looking young thing, with long, slender limbs and tousled chestnut hair that always managed to loosen and fluff up at the sides mere minutes after he’d smoothed it back. He was still too pale, and too skinny, and too short, and too shy and bookish and distant-looking, and there was always that eye. But the church ladies who stopped by still smiled politely and kissed him on both cheeks and called him handsome. Rather fewer young people came, and few of them stayed too long, but he was more than alright with that. Even now he didn’t claim much comradeship with his peers in the town, although at least now they just ignored him, rather than actively tormenting him. They had gone on to work in the shops and offices in the town while he had stayed in the school for an extra year and a half of his own volition, now sequestered away in the church’s offices where he kept up his language studies as assistant to the church’s document archives. And he made quiet peace- on the surface, anyway- with the fact that he remained, for the time being, better off in his own world.

He wasn’t entirely right on that front, though. In secret, there were one or two girls about town who had, in more private moments, overlooked his immediate imperfections and noticed his sharp jaw, his long legs and the fine, dark stubble that made him look slightly more mature despite his height. But ultimately, his poor social standing and his closed-off aura overrode their curiosity, so he was not to benefit from the much-needed confidence boost that might have provided.

Yet.

It was a relief to him when, inevitably, after a few rounds of rich red wine the conversation slid naturally away from its focus on him and how he’d grown and reverted back to the usual myriad of town gossip his mother’s friends thrived upon. He took a perch on the garden wall and feigned dutiful attention to a muster of husbands who were bickering good-naturedly about the long wait for the next football season, but really his ears were straining to follow the background sound of the radio, left singing sadly to itself in the kitchen from where his mother had finished cooking hours ago.

 “My beautiful little man.” He was startled from his reverie by his mother hopping up beside him, light as a youth herself, still skinny and chocolate-haired twenty years on with only a few strands of stormcloud-grey to show for it. She held a glass of wine in each hand, but made a game attempt to hug him with her elbows regardless as she planted a kiss on his cheek below his white eye. She handed him one of the glasses as she settled by him. “How does it feel not to be a teenager any more?”

He looked at the men whose presence he was seated on the periphery of. Red-faced, bulky, balding, talking over one another and leaning into the circle hard but somehow still staying a healthy distance apart. “Daunting,” he finally admitted.

“I know they’re a noisy bunch, Ale, but you should try and get in with the boys a little more,” she said with a conspiratorial nudge. “It’s not what you know but who you know when you’re starting out in work, you know? You should try a little… what is it businessmen call it now in America? Networking?”

Alessandro took a gulp of wine to hide his grimace. “I was sort of hoping there might be something more for me to get involved with at the church,” he said quietly. “You know, something a bit more permanent.“

His mother frowned. “Oh? They have the money to pay you for that, do they?”

“Well, they must have some money somewhere.” He shrugged uncomfortably.

“Enough to pay for someone doing a real job?” Her face was slowly souring. “Ale, what do you think the collection plate is for? You’re not going to get anything livable out of them, no matter how many dusty old tomes they promise you can play with.“

Alessandro thought of the priests’ embroidered vestments which seemed to be refreshed each year and the lavish decorations that spilled along the walls and over the altar at Christmas. They weren’t solely dependent on any collection plate he’d ever seen go round.

“Ale, are you listening?“ The nickname, repeated in a bid to hammer home her message as was her wont, bored into his head and he tried not to roll or close his eyes. “You need to think seriously, Ale. You’re taking a little while to find a girl and fly the nest and that’s alright, Ale, I would never push you out and into something you don’t want, so don’t say that’s what I’m doing- but Ale, my God, you start living your own life as an adult here too and sooner or later the bills on this old place are going to double.”

It was his turn to frown. “What do you mean? I don’t do anything I haven’t been doing here for years. I don’t need any extra money to hoard useless crap with or go out every weekend just because I’m older, I don’t-”

“Well God, Ale, maybe you should! You don’t want to be having dinner at 6pm at home with your elderly mother every night forever, son, you really don’t.” Her tone was decidedly in the wine by now, trying not to fight but with a careless edge. “What do you think you’re going to do when you finally get married, just swap to living off your wife?”

“I’m just going to get another drink.” Alessandro slithered off the wall abruptly and walked away without offering his mother another, his stomach and legs radiating a horrible, shaky lightness.

The gathering carried on long after Alessandro took his leave without warning, slipping back into the kitchen in the growing dark and then up to his room. He heard snatches of their conversations from below his window; bitching, vulgarities, scolding each other, bemoaning their kids, cursing various landlords, bosses and politicians.

“Luisa, your boy, he’s still so quiet.” Alessandro’s dozing ear was caught by a loud, brash remark directed at his mother. “Why don’t you send him our way to come and learn a bit about some trades? Doing something with his hands other than turning pages for once? It might thicken his skin up a bit.”

“Oh, don’t go on. I’ve said the same thing to him myself a hundred times if I’ve said it once.” Alessandro felt the wine sour in his belly at the tired, dispassionate tone she replied with. “He’s… sensitive. Cautious. Even more than Arturo was. I always thought he’d take after him, but… well.”

There was a silence for an absent friend.

“He’s a real book boy. It’s impressive, it’s a credit to you, Luisa, but I’ve yet to meet anyone in this town who pays by the word.” One of the church women spoke up with a sickly false kindness. “A person can study too much, especially a young man. It’s not like he’s a bad-looking boy, you know, excep-“ she caught herself just a little too late. “It’s not like he’s a bad-looking boy. He should try and patch it up with the other youngsters around here before all the pretty girls are wed.”

“Well, it’s a little funny of him to still be like that, if you ask me. You know, in the head. Needs a bit of proper work to knock it out of him.” The male speaker hurriedly spoke up again over the feminine tuts of disapproval his remark garnered. “No, no disrespect to you, Luisa! Or to Arturo, God rest him, God knows he was practically my brother growing up, you know that. No disrespect to you, I’m sure the kid will shape up and find his place eventually, but I’m just saying, when there’s something different in the head that needs working on, there’s usually something on the outside, something like that eye, that gives it away-”

“It’s called being intelligent, Massimo, I wouldn’t expect you to be familiar with it.”

At least she could muster a little bit of defense for her son in her drink-barbed tone. There was a hefty roll of nasty laughter from the assembly in the garden like distant thunder.

Alessandro turned over in bed and curled up tighter, willing the noise to muffle and sleep to come soon.


	2. Concupiscence

The best and worst thing about the dream was that once her mouth closed with his, it did not cross his mind again that it was at all wrong.

 

Alessandro sat with crossed legs on the cool stone and beckoned to his strange friends, well-practiced now in this. They bounded to him with lashing tails, their voices indistinct as always but their meaning clear in his mind's ear. A few milled around him, and many other eyes glittering in the dark besides.

 

"It was my birthday today, everyone," He told them, both palms occupied by nuzzling horned foreheads. "I’m 20 years old. Not a teenager anymore." He tried to sound proud and jovial, but he was still aching in his chest from the things he’d heard that evening. A part of him wished they would hold him for comfort as they had done when he was a child, but... the way he felt about that thought had changed irreversibly some years ago, even if he sometimes wished to return to more innocent times.

 

_ You grow and change so fast _ , a female said thoughtfully, her pale, reflecting eyes inspecting his.  _ You are a man now. So when will you be free? _

 

“Free?” He frowned.

 

_ That house tires you _ , she said. _ I feel it. You long for more from life. _

_ But don’t know exactly what, _ the biggest male added. _ You should be celebrating but…  _ He sniffed around Alessandro’s neck.  _ You smell lost. _

 

Alessandro didn’t know what to say. This wasn’t what he had come here with the intention of addressing. He had just wanted the feeling of friends around him.

 

_ Did people make you sad? _ Eyes flashed in the dark.

 

He sighed heavily. “I don’t know what to do next,” he admitted. “But it’s not them. It’s me. I can’t stay in the church archives and my mother’s house forever. It’s not a real job. It’s not, you know, pulling my weight.”

 

A head butted his shoulder from behind.  _ Weight? _ Another male voice joined in with a scoff.  _ They are the dead weight. You are the only soul in the town that rises. _

 

“That’s not fair,” Alessandro said faintly. “Not everyone can be the same way. They’re not all worthless just because I’m different to them.”

 

_ Worthless to us _ .

 

“You shouldn’t say that.”

 

_ Why do you defend them? You don’t want their lives. Their plain homes. Their dull jobs. Their passionless duty-marriages. Do you, Alessandro? _

 

He felt an ache in his stomach at that, just like the ache he’d felt when his mother had her little outburst about him leaving home and marrying, but he pressed it down. “It’s not about what I want, it’s about what’s right to do.”

 

_ What is human life about, if not finding and having what you want? You are resisting the strength that chance and nature gave you. _ The big male sounded perplexed and sorrowful.  _ There are so many places you could be free. _

 

The taller female spoke up.  _ You have so much to give. We see it burning here. _ She laid her hand on his chest, her claws prickling through his t-shirt.  _ You are full of potential, Alessandro. Full of knowledge and desire. You always have been. _

 

“That isn’t a good thing.” He felt his cheeks warming at her touch. “It’s not always a human’s place to know things. God-”

 

The dry murmur in the room at that put a curling note of fear in his belly and stopped his words in his throat.

 

_ Do you still speak with God, Alessandro? _

 

“I pray.”

 

_ Do you hear answers? _

 

His tongue fought over what to tell them. Why? Why could he lie to men of God, but not to false dream-demons of his own making? “Answers aren’t always supposed to come in a voice right then and there. You’re supposed to work on it yourself.”

 

_ Your answers are elsewhere, our love. We wish you would let yourself be you. _

 

“You keep saying that.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I don’t understand who you think I am that I’m not already being.”

 

_ Your destiny is power. You should have riches, and the dedication and admiration of followers, and the indulgence of lovers. But how can you have this when you are shamed and frightened into submission by the judgement of one who keeps you away from success? _

 

“Excess isn’t success. Money, being famous… sex-” he could barely get the word out without shivering- “they’re not good for you just because they feel good for a moment. That’s just greed. It goes against the instructions God gave us to help us live without stress and harm.”

 

_ Then why do you still long for those things, if they harm? _

 

“I don’t.”

 

Their eyes stared back unblinking. It was the most unbelievable lie that ever passed his lips. He was rapidly feeling more and more overwhelmed.

 

Yes, It was just greed. And he was  _ so  _ greedy. When was the last time he’d gone a day without the worm of at least one deadly sin crawling in the back of his mind? How far back did his feeling of always being unsated go? All the way to the first time he looked around his home and realised there were cracks in the walls. The first time he wore a hole in his shoe and was denied new ones even as Mama handed over a fistful of money notes for a case of red wine. This first time he bolted to the bathroom immediately after class and hid in a stall palming himself urgently through his jeans.

 

“Because I’m flawed,” he tried again instead. “All humans are flawed. We have sin inside we can’t get rid of from the start, because that’s just what we are. It never scrubs out. All we can do is earn forgiveness for it.”

 

_ So you walk into that place every day and it hurts you. It tells you you’re not worthy. How can you feel loved and guided right when you’re inside its jaws? _

 

“I don’t know! I just feel…” he gestured hopelessly. “Something. When I’m there. I know there’s something there that would give me what I need, if I was just… a bit better.”

 

_ Why are you so sure that ‘something’ is because of your Church, not despite it? _

 

“You still don’t understand.” His hands became fists in his lap, curling and uncurling. “I… the way I live… the time I spend there, it’s my whole life. My mother’s life. The town’s life. No, I know it’s not modern and cool and sophisticated. But it’s the only place I’ve been able to make any kind of success. And not be completely rejected.” He felt stupid saying it. “I like translating the old books in the office. I like fixing their spines. I like putting the documents in order. It feels… like I’m worth something, if I can do that. It feels like I’m helping. There’s something in there that wants to speak to me. I just need to try harder.”

 

_ How can it be? How can something that asks you not to be who you are in your true soul, not be a place of rejection? _

 

“You don’t understand,” he repeated, feeling the corners of his eyes start to prickle with the frustration. He kept saying it, but it was starting to feel like he was the only one not understanding.

 

_ Just like you do for the townspeople, you defend something that shows you no compassion. They are in direct opposition to who you are inside. You cannot be kind to them without being cruel to yourself. It is fundamental. Wanting to be strong and desired isn’t wrong, Ale- _

 

“Yes it is!”

 

His sudden outburst made the creatures draw back just a fraction. “You’re not real,” he said bitterly, fighting to compose himself. “You’re just me talking to myself in my sleep. Talking myself into staying weak.” He hated the feeling of a hot little tear escaping, trickling over his cheekbone.

 

_ Alessandro _ . The female beside him drew herself up to her knees, close to his face.  _ We are not just figments. We were made free from the start. We crept from the elements, ready. We were made to draw out freedom in your world, however best we can. That's what we've tried to do for you, all along, as you grew.  _ Her claw came up to tilt his chin.  _ You’ve grown so beautiful. You have so many gifts. But you’ve grown sad, because of what the weak and cruel and stupid have done to you _ . The back of her other hand stroked his tear-stained cheek, and he leaned into the touch despite himself.  _ You deserve touch, Alessandro. You deserve pleasure. You deserve success. You deserve your desires. They are pure humanity. _

 

He couldn’t contain a soft whimper at her words and her gentle touch. Everything told him she was wrong, but… he wanted it not to be.

 

He wanted her kindness. That was the thought that came into his mind. Her kindness.

 

_ How can the way you were made be wrong? _

 

“I don’t know.”

 

_ Then maybe it isn’t. _

 

Her face was so close to his. He looked up at her through tear-clouded eyes. Her upper lip was a strange, chitinous-looking arrangement that seemed straight and hard, framed by her short protruding tusks, but her bottom lip always looked as full and soft as any human woman’s.

 

_ What do you desire, Alessandro _ ? She urged.  _ What will set you free? _

 

“You know that,” he whined, his cheeks burning, a pit growing in his stomach. “You always know everything before I do.” He could feel every eye roving over him.

 

_ Let yourself say it without any fear, and you may have it, she purred. _

 

He already felt hopeless. What more damage could he do to himself in a dream? 

 

“ _ You _ ,” he breathed, his eyes closing against the fear. “All of you.”

 

Her tusks pinched at his cheeks when she pressed in; he let her maneuver her small mouth over his and press their lips together, her hands cupping his face to guide him. She was so warm, and beneath the sharp tusks her mouth was so soft.

 

It was never going to be a deep kiss with such mismatched jaws, but when her forked tongue brushed his lower lip on her withdrawal he groaned aloud. In any other company it would have been a horrendous thing to let loose, but he could already feel the male behind him rising on its haunches and reaching its claws over his shoulder to scrape lightly at his chest through his shirt, and that made him gasp even harder and buck his hips unsteadily. A second hot forked tongue traced the tendons in his neck as it guided him back to rest in its lap. He reached a shaking hand up and around and found the back of the creature's head, swirling his slim fingers through the dark, sleek hair there.

 

It felt so good to finally touch his creatures like this, to feel the warmth of another living being move against him, not just with care and nurture-love but with desire. The big male purred like a cat, having him in its arms now, one heavy clawed hand over his shoulder and one hooked under his arm and resting on his hip, still tasting his skin like a python. He was only pulled from the reverie of that touch by a new one; one of the females was tugging his t-shirt from where it was tucked into his belted jeans as she swung one leg over both of his, settling lightly on his thighs. Looking up at her dark, deep-set eyes, roving over his body, he was suddenly acutely aware of the tent forming in his jeans. She laughed in his head, but kindly, sweetly, and nuzzled her nose against his as her claws dived back under his shirt, exploring his flat stomach and making him blush and sigh.

 

_ When's my turn? _ The male rumbled behind him, good-humoured but insistent.  _ Look how much he likes that. He's going to imprint on you like a little bird before anyone else gets to play. _

 

He flushed even more at that. When the female released his mouth again, it seemed she was about to banter back, but his squirming distracted her as he pulled his body around and pushed his mouth against the male's. His tusks were thicker and blunter, which made it easier to kiss deeper, and the creature hummed in approval at his efforts. The sensation of other tongues exploring his lips and mouth was new enough, but the feeling of their forked tips was something else. And the male seemed to have a slight fascination with his incisors, which were sharp by human standards but certainly not by those of his companions', which made him want to laugh slightly deliriously. Whatever it was thinking about his human shape, it must have been positive, because before too long he could feel a firmness pressing against his hip where he rested in its lap. Nervousness at that feeling chased the giggles away, but replaced them with a hungry little twinge in his belly. He reached out to the hip of the female that was still watching with entertained curiosity and pawed at her with nervous fingertips. She shuffled further onto his own lap despite the weakness of his touch.

 

_ You're getting very bold, _ she mused, tucking a strand of his thick chestnut hair behind his ear. Then her claws fell to his thighs, and squeezed.

 

He gasped sharply as her right hand slithered down and brushed once through his jeans over his hardening cock, soft palm to firm claws, cupping him briefly before continuing along to scratch at his inner thigh. His arousal twitched in response, visible under his clothes, and he whined aloud to feel the heat of so many eyes looking down on his excitement and vulnerability.

 

_ Be a little more generous with him, _ the big male huffed.  _ He isn't made of glass _ .

 

_ You just want to jump straight to his cock. You're so impatient _ , she smirked.

 

_ Of course I am _ , he snorted.  _ We've been here forever, I'm bored of everyone else's. _

 

Alessandro made a throaty noise at the implications of their exchange, which prompted a ripple of renewed interest around the room.  _ That's a good sound _ , the male purred back, plucking at the hem of his shirt.  _ Is that what you want? You want us to all see how stiff you are? _ Two clawtips tickled lightly at his belly where the fine dark hairs began, making him fidget deliciously in the other not-quite-a-man's lap.

_ You'll have to tell us, _ teased the female, leaning over him a little more to lay both hands on his hipbones where her compatriot exposed them.  _ What do you want? _

 

"I want- uhh,” he drew a shuddering breath and fought to steady himself. “Touch me,” he whined at last, lifting his hips.

 

Her hands slid down and made light work of the buttons and zipper, her claws clinking against them. They grazed his hips and she slid them into the waistband of his underwear, and he whimpered as she pulled them down, a sound which turned into a hiss as she dragged the band off over his head and let him spring free. It almost hurt, it was so new and good, but that was nothing compared to when the heel of her palm came to nestle firmly at the base of him, and her fingers curled around, carefully avoiding laying the edge of her claws against his flesh. Her hand was so hot and soft and new to be enveloped by, and when she gave him a slow, deliberate stroke that felt a thousand miles away from anything he’d ever treated himself to, he moaned like a wounded animal and felt himself kick at nothing, just desperate to move somehow in response to the tension in his whole body.  _ You have such a big, pretty cock, Alessandro _ , she purred sweetly over his sounds, twisting her wrist coaxingly.  _ You’ll be such a treat when we’ve taught you everything you need. _

 

“Ooh, fuck,” he whimpered at her words as she continued to stroke gently, and his hand went to her wrist. “Enough… don’t, or I’ll-“ he stuttered hopelessly, his cheeks and ears burning red. Her hand slipped off him tenderly, but as it did so he felt other hands hook under his arms and begin manhandling his taut but pliable body.

Pulled up onto his knees, Alessandro suddenly found his face level with the big male’s black-clad crotch, who was now standing, legs apart.

 

_ Do you know how to treat a man, Ale? With your mouth?  _ Its eyes burned bright down at him.

 

Alessandro’s heart jumped into his mouth. “Yeah,” he managed. Or at least, he’d seen it faked in movies. The girl knelt down in front of the man, and he pulled on her hair while she bobbed her head… how difficult could it be?

 

_ Do you want to try it? _

 

Oh, he realised suddenly, he really, really did. He suddenly wanted that so much it was making the blood pound at his temples. He tried to say something, but nothing came to mind fast enough and his mouth just fell open, his pink tongue sneaking out to wet his lips almost if it’s own accord.

 

Laughter, not just from the one in front of him, reached his ears and his skin prickled hot with embarrassment and excitement.

 

Black claws reached down and pinched open the belt buckle and buttons that were now the whole focus of Alessandro’s wide, mismatched eyes. Much as the female had done to him earlier, the male shimmied his clothing down a little and tugged himself free, letting his erection rise and bob to his stomach before the young man’s eyes. It was inhuman; thick and heavily ridged in several lines along the sides and underside, darkening from warm grey to pitch black at the tip much like the creatures’ limbs. A thatch of equally dark hair haloed the base, trailing up under its shirt and spreading out across its thighs and balls still tucked into the tight, plain clothing. It was bigger than his, and despite his considerable lack of experience, he’d have been willing to bet bigger than most human men.

 

At this point, Alessandro realised he knew very, very little about any sex acts a young man couldn’t perform alone. Fear and lust argued inside him. “You know I haven’t done this before,” he said, the tremble in his voice betraying his nerves.

 

_ Don’t worry, I won’t be harsh on you _ . He felt a warm, hard claw gently stroke around the shell of his ear, tickling his cheek.  _ We can stop any time you need to. _

 

Gingerly, he pressed the flat of his tongue to the underside of the creature’s cock, cradling the head. It was hot, and the taste was salty and a tiny bit sour, but he persevered, feeling the small ridges press into his tongue. He tilted his head a little, sliding a small lick over the velvety, deceptively sharp-looking tip, and pressing his lips to it in a fragile kiss. The way it pulsed slightly against his mouth in response made him whine with anxiety; he couldn’t even begin to figure out how he was supposed to keep from pulling back and make this feel anything other than nervous and faint. “It’s… big,” he said softly, looking imploringly up at his first lover.

 

_ It’s alright _ , he said lightly.  _ Take me in your hand, here _ . He guided the man’s hand to the base of his cock, and Alessandro did so obediently.  _ Just try that much, now, just go slowly _ .

 

There were just a couple of inches left protruding from Alessandro’s fist, and his grasp held it quite still. It did look much more manageable like that. Steeling his nerves, he brought his slightly parted lips to touch on the head again, and began to sink down.

 

Holding his jaws far enough apart to avoid scraping the beast with his teeth but keeping his lips enjoyably tight was taxing, and the drool collecting on his tongue was uncomfortable. As his lips came to rest against his own fingers he did his best to lick around the little bit of length in his mouth, but he couldn’t hold his hollowed-out cheeks right any longer, and felt saliva run down his chin. He hastily slid back off to swallow and mop at his face, embarrassed. “I’m- sorry, I’m… not very good at this.”

 

_ No rush. _ The creature eased itself in and out of Alessandro’s still-grasping fist a little.

 

His face wiped, he took a heavy breath and tried again, but stayed suckling firmly on the tip for a little while this time, and found after allowing himself enough time he started to relax. He inched a little further down, feeling the satisfying ridge of the head slip past his lips. He pressed the flat of his tongue to the very tip and tasted again, breathing in sharply through his nose as he tried bobbing his head ever so slightly. The pleased growl that elicited made his breath catch with arousal, and he found the more he bobbed, the easier it became, until his lips easily met the top of his fist and took in the two or three exposed inches. He loosened and moved his fingers here and there, not quite brave enough to fully remove his hand and risk the beast fucking his throat, and started to learn which squeezes and licks drew out the heaviest breaths. Claws dragged through his hair, giving little tugs now and again that spoke of power not yet being used. Alessandro wondered, tasting more slickness on the flat of his tongue, how long it might take him to adapt to take more and more length in his cheeks, until he could sink far enough down for his nose to touch the black hairs on the beast’s belly.

 

He looked up at his creature through long eyelashes with the most hazy, hungry expression he could muster. Its breath was coming in sharp, heavy, telltale bursts.  _ Fuck, I’m not gonna last too long, _ his voice crooned in Alessandro’s head.  _ You should pull back. _

 

He wanted to feel this. He didn’t know why, but he really, instinctively wanted to feel this. His own cock, which had waned while going unstimulated, was quickly getting heavy between his kneeling legs again. He shook his head ever so slightly, his movement limited, and tried to purr against the creature.

 

Its chest heaved at the vibration inside his mouth _. Ohh… are you sure? _

 

Alessandro hollowed his cheeks and moaned affirmatively in his throat, and that was all he needed to do. He did his damnedest, but the feeling of thick, warm release abruptly coating the back of his throat was too startling. He pulled back, coughing, and screwed his eyes shut as the rest graced his nose and chin. 

 

Even while recovering his gag reflex, that sensation was much better, making something surge and squirm inside him. He felt… oddly proud.  _ He  _ had caused that strong reaction.

 

_ Fuck. You should have let me back you off _ . The male’s long tongue was lolling out, panting like an overheated dog.  _ Sorry _ .

 

“Don’t be.” Alessandro ran his tongue over his coated lips. “I liked it.”

 

That startled the creature, who was already tucking himself back into his black pants. At first he looked surprised, then his jaws curled into a grin.  _ Truly? _

 

“Was I good?” 

 

It seemed to the beast as though a light had come on behind the human’s eyes. His hand was pressed into the crevice between his thigh and groin, his thumb stroking the base of his own cock so rhythmically he seemed unaware he was doing it, too hypnotised momentarily by the taste and feeling of the seed he tried to clean from his face with his tongue and free hand. As the big male watched, a bead of pale precum blossomed and started sliding tantalisingly down the young man’s shaft.

 

_ Very good _ , he assured, warmth filling his voice. He smoothed a hand over the top of Alessandro’s head like a pet, pushing his messy hair back, and the young man felt a shiver of enjoyment under his hand, his claws lightly scraping his scalp. Over his head, the male caught the hungry eyes of the two females, watching every moment along with the other eyes in the darkness.  _ I think you’ve earned a reward _ .

 

When Alessandro turned around, shuffling on his knees, his mouth was abruptly captured again by the taller female, the one who had stroked him, now knelt behind him. He almost squeaked with surprise, but when her hand slid back between his legs, her clawtips tickling him, the sound turned into a low moan. Her other hand pressed gently on his shoulder and he melted willingly back into his haunches and then onto his backside. He wondered half-anxiously and half-eagerly if he was going to have his sore jaw pressed into service again, but then she climbed and crouched directly over his hips and began unbuttoning the dark shirt she wore just like the others, and when she completed the shirt buttons her claws continued to open her pants buttons and zipper. She shrugged her shirt away, and fixed him with a piercing look. He worked very hard to hold her gaze, but he couldn’t stop his eyes from trailing down her body. She lowered her mouth to his again, and he accepted it greedily, his hands sliding over her curves. He was still clinging to her, panting into the kiss, her soft belly trapping his cock between the two of them, when she spoke in his mind.

 

_ I want to fuck you, Ale. I want you to take that pleasure you deserve. _

 

He moaned into her mouth.

 

_ Do you want to fuck me? _

  
  


He only broke the kiss so he could gulp a little air, nod vigorously, and then dip his head to nip at her neck. She shifted and wriggled on him, trying to kick her remaining clothes off among the tangle of their legs, and then she was finally naked and he felt her rub purposefully against him, her tail lashing around, her whole body drawing him inside.

 

The hot silk feel of her as she sank onto him was beyond amazing. Had he had enough time he would have obeyed his snarling instincts and slammed his hips upwards into her, but she took the length of him so smoothly and firmly he had no need to. Instead he just arched his back and let himself squirm and moan with pleasure at the new feeling, his blunt little nails scrabbling at her thighs. He adjusted eventually as she stayed firmly astride him, and he tried to steady himself, panting hopelessly.

 

_ Did that feel nice? _ She teased him, her eyes bright under their heavy lids.

 

“So good,” he gasped, his slender chest heaving. “Ohh, please, I need to move…”

 

_ Are you sure you’re ready, love? _

 

“Yes!” His nails gripped her flesh again and his face burned as he looked her in the eye and pleaded for it. “ _ Fuck _ me!”

 

At that she finally leaned fully over his body, one clawed hand resting on his chest for leverage, and began to ride him. Alessandro didn’t even need to think about it- his hips snapped to attention and rose to meet her roughly; he let his head fall back to the stone floor as he grasped and kneaded her full thighs in both hands. At times, she made him chase it, hovering above and inviting him to push up into her; at other moments, she ground down on his hips herself and held him steady while he panted through a surge of pleasure, helping him hold on.

 

As if it wasn’t already enough, the other female had come to his side, one hand stroking his inner thigh, enjoying his sounds. He slid his hand onto hers and up her arm, unsure what to touch or where to lead her, just soaking in the softness of her, his palm finding her broad belly and breasts, thumbing around a nipple to earn a pleased little whine from her.

 

When he hitched his legs up with a gasp at another powerful move from the other female, the second pulled back, and not long after he felt the hot, wet press of her grinding his leg between hers with a growl. He reached out to her again, and finding her too far away, beckoned her back with a wordless keening sound. She rutted herself on him one more time, then pushed his leg back down and further apart, crawling a little up his body to sit over his strained thigh beside her likeness.

 

_ Here _ , she purred, catching his reaching hand and guiding the tips of his index and middle finger to what felt like a small, firm knot between her  lips.  _ You want to touch? This is very important information, sweet one. Trust me _ . His mouth watered at the tone of her non-voice.  _ This is where you’ll really please most girls _ . She let go of his hand and leaned back a little, invitingly.  _ Why don’t you explore? _

 

She was hot and soft and wet, and there was an appealing slick sound when he parted her folds with his unsure but keen fingers, something he hadn’t noticed at first when the other had climbed astride him, but he could notice both now in glorious, obscene concert. He brushed his middle fingertip over the bud she’d revealed to him, first softly then firmer, and was rewarded with a sweet murmur.

 

_ Isn’t he clever? _ Breathed the first female, who had eased her strokes greatly to allow him to focus elsewhere.

 

_ He’s such a fast learner _ , the other quipped back, tickling his wrist with the tip of her claw. She inhaled sharply and let out a catlike mewl when he slid his curling finger back to collect wetness from her entrance and returned with it back to teasing her clit.  _ Oh, he’s a natural _ .

 

Pride swelled in Alessandro’s chest and, instead of another shaky breath, this time he gave the smallest of growls.

 

Although he was focused on the first female in his lap and the second one beside her who he was stroking, he was still aware of more creatures creeping in around him. The big male he'd serviced first was still coiled beside him at his left hip, watching the rise and fall of his pleased compatriot on the human's length with glowing, fascinated eyes, and a second male, slender and taller, joined him, tongue flicking like a snake tasting the air, which for all Alessandro knew it could have been. There were two other sets of claws and a mouth he couldn't really place gently scoring his back and suckling at his neck- and yet another new, small male on its knees moved into his vision on his right side, skinny and fully shed of its clothing, erect. Claws gently guided his hand from the female’s thighs to the new male’s, and he fell to stroking him obediently; his spatial awareness was getting hazy and his breath was hitching, most of his attention occupied by his rider and her heaving breasts and the endless soft, hot enveloping of his cock. Her eyes bored into him, fluttering closed as she circled her hips on the next descent, and his working hand involuntarily squeezed too as he shuddered with pleasure, earning him a pleased growl and a clawed hand ruffling his hair from the skinny creature.

 

Sensing his closeness, she fell to pleasuring herself to keep up with him, like the near-mirror image of herself that was straddling his leg just behind her. They were close enough together to intertwine the claws of their free hands in the moment and nuzzle, the hindmost’s chin on her likeness’ shoulder, with deep purrs. Quite aside from the obvious eroticism there was something just deeply impressive about the deft way they could manoeuvre the pads of their fingers without misdirecting those sharp talons. He wished he could hold it together even longer, but they were so tender and exposed and free in his lap with their tails coiled together between them in adoration, and the deep, warm cushion of her cunt and the firm ridges of the flushed cock in his hand was so much at once, and his first partner’s eyes roamed still so hungrily over their intertwined, arching bodies-

 

He finally reached his peak, feeling his thighs and navel tighten and spasm, seeing and feeling her buck and squeeze in response to his release. His relief seemed to have a ripple effect through his attendants but for a while, all he could focus on was leaning back and propping himself up with both hands behind his back as his hips rocked out of control and he cried out again and again, almost tearing up with the intensity. When his eyes fluttered and rolled back in pleasure, his off-white eye took on the most unsettling blank, pupil-less affect that might have frightened a human lover, but his partners only crooned with appreciation in time with his gasps- and in due time, the females’ voices grew erratic in climax too, brought over by the abandon in his voice and the sheen of sweat on his flushed face and neck, and her inner walls soaked and massaged his already overworked length more than he thought possible.

After what felt like an eternity, his contracting muscles ground to a halt and his cries died to a last heavy exhale, spent. Sated, the two were still nestling together astride him, and across his body, the fierce little male was reaching out to the others on his other side, his own hand having replaced Alessandro’s when he fell back. 

 

Pleasure was slowly fading to overstimulation, and at his faintly distressed whine the female he was still inside raised herself gently off him and moved to his side, their mutual huffs at the sensation harmonising strangely. He stayed still, eyes dazed and glossy, watching the mesmerising back-and-forth of the two males above him, and his fading erection beyond them, obscenely slick with her wetness and his own cum. The big male had been selected, and seemed more than happy to be back in service, nuzzling into the other’s thighs, laving his forked tongue all over his length, tormenting him with quick on-off suckles until the smaller of the two grabbed his shoulder with a warning growl and set him to work properly. Hypnotised by their rough play, Alessandro cautiously slid his hand up the smaller male’s calf and, finding no resistance, took a light grip on its thigh, drawing his nails gently over the firm flesh as the first female had when she had started exciting him.

 

The smaller male got rougher and more urgent by the moment, his hands wrapping around his compatriot’s horns to guide him faster, forcing him down all the way- which he took with nothing but a low rumble and a glittering, unblinking eye. Alessandro could feel the creature’s thigh tensing, and see his balls lifting a little in readiness. Despite still feeling hazy, daring bubbled in him, and he slithered his hand from the small male’s thigh upwards to cup them, palming them while his fingertips pressed up behind.

 

The small male signaled his orgasm with a throaty, almost metallic sound, yanking the other’s head violently onto him as hard as possible. Alessandro saw the big one’s throat working, swallowing two, three, four times, and recognised in his dark, heavy-lidded eyes the smirk his mouth couldn’t currently make. When it became too much and the other collapsed away from him, his mouth slid off trailing his spiralling forked tongue behind him, leaving the other male’s ridged, sharp cock licked clean.

 

Alessandro fell back too, feeling dizziness and trembling in his body, and an ache behind his eyes, but a bigger, warmer, delicious ache in his chest and thighs. “I want to stay here forever,” he burbled suddenly at nobody in particular, his voice breaking as though he had no control of his speech, “please, forever, please let me stay here, I-”

  
  


\---

 

If the dream was as bright and beautiful as anything he could remember, waking was the deepest, most regretful fall to earth. There was no slow returning to real life; Alessandro jolted awake, instantly aware of the cooling release that painted his stomach and his trained, restrained, waking mind taking back control, seeming to scream so loudly and hoarsely at him that in his agony he felt like the whole street could hear it. The undeniable knowledge of what his sick, sick aberration of a subconscious had finally succumbed to with such flagrancy scored itself across his prone, humiliated form, eyes squeezed tight shut, and it did so with all the ferocity of the evil claws that had teased him into a private hell in his sleep. He felt sure that if he dared to look down at his disgraced body there'd be the bloody, burnt brands of teeth and claws where each beast had touched him, the due punishment for his disgusting display while he was supposed to be in peace, at rest.

 

He shuddered violently as he wiped the exorbitant spill from his body with tissues, shoving them deep into the mostly-empty plastic bag lining the wastepaper bin beside his bed. He even took the tied bag into the bathroom with him while he scrubbed himself beyond clean and into soreness under stinging cold water, as though if unattended it might spring back open and soil the whole bedroom. His legs still trembled with the residue of his sleep-climax when he stood.

 

Yes, sometimes he still embarrassed himself in his sleep like a teenager and had to hastily bundle his sheets into the washer himself before his poor mother could get her unsuspecting hands on them, and sometimes he woke up hard and aching to a degree he couldn’t cold-shower away and had to satisfy, trying to think of something normal, trying to rush the wild nature coursing in him to its conclusion and forget about it. And he regretted it in that distant, generic way you were supposed to regret everything the flesh did. But this was entirely different. This was… so far beyond the pale. To give himself over to beasts covered in the most cartoonish obvious hallmarks of evil, to succumb to the hollow selfishness of not just soft succubus bodies but other  _ male  _ bodies, his sick abandon in pleasure outside all the natural orders, his even sicker delight in the  _ pain  _ of claws and the  _ degradation _ of semen on his face-

 

God, what power did he give them over him? What cracks could they try to seep through in waking life with such a gullible vessel there for the taking?  

 

It had felt so real.

 

He let the cold water pour into his mouth, pawing at his tongue, nausea rolling in his gut. If his hands were still slick with soap that made his face contort under the bitter chemical taste, good. If the skin of his thighs and belly stayed still red-raw from scrubbing well after the time he slunk back to his room with the binbag held at arm’s length, good.

 

He heard Luisa pottering about in her own room through the wall between them, woken by the purring boiler and his rushing shower water; her bare footfalls and the clink of her moving things around on her dressing table. He rushed to dress. He was stepping out of the house by the time her bedroom door opened; there was no way he could look his mother in the face this morning.


End file.
